Gob-scure Arcana

Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting edition of Obscure Arcana, where week after week we bring you exciting new spells to inspire your favorite casters to ever-greater heights. Those of you who’ve been paying attention will no doubt by now know that it is Goblin Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, a weeklong celebration of everyone’s favorite little green men. It follows, then, that today’s offering will feature spells of goblins, by goblins, and for goblins, so without further ado, let’s strap our spellbooks to our worgs and get started.

Goblin Conversion

With a word, you can alter the fundamental chemistry and biology of a small group of humanoids, effectively causing them to undergo a series of key changes in their physiology which affects their very racial identities. When you cast this spell, you can cause each of the targets to either gain or lose the goblinoid subtype for the spell’s duration. You do not need to affect each target in the same way (for example, you could cause two targets with the subtype to lose it, while causing a third target that does not have the subtype to gain it). Multiple instances of the goblinoid subtype do not stack: using the spell to give a creature the subtype when it already has it has no effect, nor does using it to remove the subtype from a creature that does not have it.

Goblin Form

You cause the target to adopt goblinoid aspects. The exact effects of the spell depend on the size of the creature being transformed. Creatures of Small size assume the form of a typical goblin, gaining a +10-foot bonus to their land speed and gaining a +4 competence bonus on Ride and Stealth checks. Medium creatures are transformed into hobgoblins, gaining a +2 enhancement bonus to your choice of Dexterity or Constitution, and gaining a +4 competence bonus on Stealth checks. Large creatures get slightly smaller as they assume the form of a bugbear: though the target’s size category does not actually change, this does eliminate the size penalties to attack, AC, and Stealth checks associated with being Large size, and the target gains a +3 competence bonus on Stealth and Perception checks.

The exact appearance of the target’s form is determined by you at the time of the casting, and the target gains a +10 circumstance bonus on Disguise checks made to appear as a creature of the assumed type (goblin for small creatures, hobgoblin for Medium creature. If a creature affected by this spell changes size while under the spell’s effects (such as if he is affected by enlarge person), this also changes which type of goblinoid he is transformed into, and the bonuses granted by the spell change accordingly. If the creature becomes too large or to small to be affected by the spell, the spell immediately ends.

Goblin Horde

You summon a small army of goblins, which appear wholly formed from the cauldron that was used as a focus for the spell. For the spell’s duration, at the beginning of your turn each round, a single creature of the goblinoid subtype appears within the cauldron, and acts immediately after your turn each round. If there is currently a creature in the cauldron, no goblins are summoned during that round.

In order to determine the type of goblinoid creature summoned, roll a d%. On a result of 1-40, the summoned creature is a 1st-level goblin warrior; on a result of 41-80, the creature summoned is a 1st-level hobgoblin warrior; and on a result of 81-100, the creature summoned is a bugbear.

The summoned creatures are under no compulsion to obey your commands, but are magically prevented from harming you. The first time that any creature summoned by this spell that attempts to harm you, he must succeed on a Will save (DC equal to the spell’s saving throw DC) or be unable to do so for 24 hours. When you cast the spell, you may designate a number of additional creatures that the goblins are prevented from harming, to a maximum amount of protected creatures (including yourself) equal to your caster level. If you do, then any creature summoned by this spell that fails its Will save once is unable to harm any of the protected creatures for 24 hours.

Goblins summoned by this spell are not created from nothingness or called from some other plane, but are rather simply plucked from another location on the plane you are currently on. They are not magically returned whence they came after being summoned, and remain as long as they are inclined to do so.

Goblin Invisibility

This stealthy spell is favored by goblinoids of all sorts, and though it does not actually render the target invisible, in the case of the stealthy humanoids who invented the spell, the difference is largely academic. You greatly increase the target’s natural stealth, improving his inborn capabilities and allowing him to capitalize on circumstances to become practically impossible to detect. This effectively grants an enhancement bonus to the target’s Stealth skill equal to the sum of the target’s existing circumstance, competence, morale, and racial bonuses to Stealth (for example, a creature with no circumstance, competence, morale, or racial bonuses to Stealth would gain no benefit, while a creature with a +5 competence bonus and a +8 racial bonus would gain a +13 enhancement bonus).

Goblin Transference

Because of the tragically expendable nature of goblin warriors, over time goblin shamans and hedge-wizards developed this handy spell in order to gain the maximum benefit out of any spells that they cast upon their allies. If the spell’s target dies while under the effect of goblin transference,any active spell effects currently affecting the target immediately pass to the nearest living creature of the goblinoid subtype. Spell effects transferred this way do not have their duration increased or their effect changed when transferred to the new creature (for example, if a character affected by bull’s strength, and goblin transference is slain, then the nearest creature with the goblinoid subtype will immediately gain the benefits of these spells. If the bull’s strength effect had two minutes remaining in its duration, then the new creature would only continue to benefit from it for two more minutes, even if the original duration had been five minutes.) Note that goblin transference itself is also transferred. Any spells for which the new creature would not be a legal target fail to be transferred.If there is no creature with the goblinoid subtype within one mile of the target when he dies, this spell has no effect.

Great Goblin

You empower a single Small creature of the goblinoid subtype, causing him to grow to mammoth proportions, such that he easily towers over all other goblinoids. The target’s size becomes Huge, increasing its space and reach to 15 feet, and imposing a -2 size penalty on attack rolls and AC, a -8 size penalty to Stealth checks, but granting a +2 size bonus to CMB and CMD. Additionally, the goblinoid’s muscles swell in size, granting him a +6 size bonus to his Strength and Constitution scores, and increasing his natural armor bonus to AC by +4. Finally, as a paragon of goblin nature, the target gains an additional +8 bonus to Stealth checks (effectively negating the size penalty), and is able to use the Stealth skill even while being observed. These bonuses and penalties last for the spell’s duration.